


Invisible & Silent

by theLiterator



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Chapter 13, Duty, Loyalty, M/M, Ring of the Lucii, ring goes on ring goes off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 02:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12831603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: This isn't what he wanted.





	Invisible & Silent

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gladnoct week Day One: Gladio sees Noct use the ring.

They’re overwhelmed.

The thing is, Gladio’s ready to die like this; the abandoned, daemon-infested remnants of Gralea have taken their toll on what had remained of his hope.

Noct hasn’t got any weapons; none of them have any weapons, because of some machine Gladio hadn’t known existed before now. If he had, the knowledge would have filled him up with too much terror to contemplate.

The Empire hadn’t needed to kill the king to take down the wall, in the end. It’s fall wasn’t anything but inevitable, like the MTs, like Noctis succeeding his father.

Like rain or the starscourge or a fight to the death.

Noctis has a plan though, and Gladio, for once, has to trust in that.

Ignis is the optimistic one, and Gladio wants to shake him, demand to know what the hell there is to be optimistic about, but he knows he can’t.

He can get away with that shit with Noctis, because Noct has been _his_ since before they’d ever met, but Ignis… 

It’s just different, is all.

“There’s too many,” Prompto whispers, watching as MTs they’ve already taken out unfold themselves from the floor and array against them again.

There’re definitely too many, Gladio thinks. And none of their group armed with anything but their fists and whatever the hell light spell Noct has pulled out of his ass.

(He wants to ask, because normally Ignis would but Ignis can’t _see_ , so he doesn’t even know that there’s anything to ask about. But he can still feel the wall he’d put up between Noctis and himself on that fucking train; it feels like a decade ago.)

“Man,” Noct says, taking a few steps back until he hits Gladio. There’s a brief hesitation before Gladio drops a steadying hand on Noct’s shoulder, and Noct pretends not to notice, but Prompto is staring at his hand like he’s just tried to kill the prince. The king.

His fault. His argument, his demand. Fuck. Not a conversation for right now.

“I don’t want to do this,” Noctis says, his voice low and rough and heavy with something that hadn’t been there before Altissia and… well. Altissia. Not for the first time, Gladio promises himself he’ll figure everything out _after_ Noct gets his ass in gear and saves the world like he’s supposed to.

Til then, he’s stuck with… well. A fucking mess.

“C’mon,” Gladio says, trying to tug Noct behind him like he’s supposed to. Noctis resists, and Gladio has to suppress the bone-deep shock at that.

“Not this time,” Noctis says, and his voice is so _strange_. Gladio wants to demand Noctis tell him what he’s _thinking_ , it’s the Shield’s job to…

Shield.

A deep purple fire is spreading across Noctis’s skin, spilling out from cracks that shouldn’t be there. Gladio’s seen it before, he thinks, but he can’t pull the memory out from under the visceral _horror_ he’s feeling at the way the world has just slipped sideway on its axis.

Noct has one hand up, like that’s enough to fight off a dozen MTs that just woke up after being killed once before already, and the deep purple fire is spreading across the room, until Noctis is cracking apart and so is the very air around the MTs.

They start screaming, and Noct stops breathing, his whole body seeming too big for his skin with all the purple energy spewing from him.

Gladio reaches for the others, the hand not on Noct’s shoulder reaching behind him to be certain he’s not alone in this, he’s not hallucinating the end of the world forming around them in purple fire and a darkness so profound he feels like he’s going blind, and then, abruptly, everything twists back into place.

Gladio blinks.

Noctis falls to his knees, and it’s another few seconds before he breathes again, a sharp, bright inhale that Gladio can almost feel.

“What the hell,” he says, not quite a question.

“Ow,” Noctis whispers, and his skin is still cracked, dull purple light showing through where he should be bleeding or whole – or anything, really, that isn’t _that_.

“I should say so,” Ignis says. “What _was_ that?” he asks, prim and precise like he only gets when he’s deeply upset. 

Prompto waits for one of them to answer, coughing self-consciously when no one does. “I think Noct ripped a hole in the world.”

“Ah,” Ignis says, like he gets it. Gladio doesn’t think he really does; he doesn’t think even Noctis understands what just happened. “Is everyone all right?”

“Yeah,” Gladio says, because he should be; he didn’t even have to fight. Prompto echoes him, grabbing Ignis’s arm and squeezing tight.

Noctis doesn’t answer in words, but when Gladio offers him a hand back up, Noctis accepts it. Gladio can feel a soul-deep chill from the black ring that Noctis is finally wearing, and he wants to… he wants.

He wants to break something. A wall. The first king of the Lucii. _Himself_.

 _I didn’t want this_ , he thinks hopelessly. _I take it back._

Noctis is watching him, though; biting his lip and looking like he’s been half-devoured by a magic that Gladio hadn’t ever really thought about until that moment.

He yanks Noctis to his feet and forces himself to take a step back, to slap Noct’s shoulder like he normally would after any successful fight.

It doesn’t matter that what he’d really like to do is pick Noctis up and carry him all the way back to an Insomnia that doesn’t exist anymore. Noctis isn’t _his_ anymore; Gladio’d been the one to push that. He’d forced Noct into this.

His prince – his _king_ , and Gladio hadn’t known.

_I take it **back**!_


End file.
